I’m a Messianic music aficionado. It’s why I created Chavah, the best darn Messianic internet radio on the web. It’s why I’ve been amassing Messianic music chord sheets and putting them on the opened web.
Judah knows Messianic music.
I sat down tonight to pick out some music to play for our congregation this upcoming shabbat. Seeing as how we’re approaching Yom Kippur, a time for repentance, I wanted to select some songs that would move the hearts of our congregants towards God in repentance.
I was a bit surprised to find out there’s virtually no Messianic music about repentance.
Why is this?
There are plenty of songs about God’s forgiveness, mind you: Boskey’s Depths of the Sea, Chernoff’s There’s a Wind, or Lamb’s Yeshua Means Salvation, for example, all sing the praises of God’s great forgiveness and mercy. And Steve McConnell’s Yom Kippur song mentions only atonement, not repentance.
Granted, there are a good number of songs encouraging the praiser to turn to God, which implicitly suggests teshuva, turning, repenting. And plenty on God’s atonement through Yeshua, and so many on the great sacrifice of the Lamb.
Still, there are almost zero Messianic songs directly about repentance. Searching my massive Messianic song chord stash for “repent” yields non-Messianic songs like Yosef Karduner’s Hashivenu or Simcha Kanter’s Elu V’elu Oimrim.
I am curious to know the cause for this lack of focus on personal repentance in Messianic music. I suspect it’s a subtle leftover from Christian theology, where, as one Christian once told me, “God forgives you even if you don’t repent – grace!” It would explain why there are a good number of songs on God’s forgiveness, but so few on personal repentance.
Fine blog reader, can you explain to me why are there so few Messianic songs on repentance?